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Petrolina, 
Brazil
418,619 people lived in Petrolina in 2025. It is the 1344th largest of the world's 12,138 cities, and the 40th largest in Brazil.
That figure counts the whole built-up area, not the area Petrolina governs, so it may be far from the number the city publishes about itself. How the UN measures a city.
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries
People · every five years · 1975 to 2050
How Petrolina grew
Count 10 people in Petrolina in 1975 and the same count gives 48.7 in 2025.
On the UN's projection it will have 413,781 people in 2050. It passed 250,000 people between 1995 and 2000.
projected (after 2025) · how sure the UN is: high moderate low
How to read this: read it left to right, 1975 to 2050, one column every five years, the height being people. Hatching marks the projected years. Below, a strip of the UN's confidence: strong colour where the census maps are recent and detailed, pale where they are not, blank where the place was not counted as a city.
People · your family's years · 1975 to 2050
Petrolina through your family’s years
Put in the years your family were born. You’ll see how many people lived in Petrolina in each of those years, and when each of them turned 30.
Brazil · every city · 2025
Where it is
How to read this: Brazil and its 356 cities in 2025, each a dot whose area is its number of people (the largest is São Paulo). Petrolina is ringed, in colour; the other cities are grey. Neighbouring countries are outlines.
Area and built-up land · km²
How much land it covers
In 2025, Petrolina covered 94 km², and buildings, roads and other built-up land covered 23 km² of it. That is 54 m² of built-up land for each person, about a square 7 by 7 metres. Since 1975, its built-up land has grown to 6.1 times its size, and its people are 4.9 times as many.
How to read this: each pale square is the city's whole area, the strong square inside it the part that is built on; one scale for all three, so a bigger square is more land. Hatched is the UN's projection.
Of every 100 people in Brazil
Its share of Brazil
Of every 1,000 people in Brazil in 2025, 2 lived in Petrolina, which is 418,619 people.
How to read this: shrink Brazil to 1,000 people and this is what you get. The coloured squares are the ones who would live in Petrolina; the grey ones are everybody else, in other cities, in towns and out in the country.
Ranked by people · 2025
Cities of a similar size
In the world, 2025
- 1340 Hosur India420,017
- 1341 Basirhat India419,703
- 1342 Mykolaiv Ukraine419,484
- 1343 Ikot Ekpene Nigeria418,650
- 1344 Petrolina418,619
- 1345 Nice France418,294
- 1346 Eldoret Kenya418,175
- 1347 Chandrapur India416,903
- 1348 Taixing China416,677
In Brazil, 2025
- 1172 Maringá473,708
- 1176 Macapá471,922
- 1193 Jundiaí465,531
- 1322 Porto Velho422,943
- 1344 Petrolina418,619
- 1358 São José do Rio Preto414,406
- 1368 Americana412,133
- 1425 Volta Redonda398,107
- 1481 Caxias do Sul383,774
How to read this: names are in order of size, the leading number being each city's rank among all 12,138 in 2025; the bars share a scale within a list. A jump in the ranks means a city under 300,000 people, which is not given a page here.
Apparatus
Sources and method
The figures for Petrolina are the UN's own, at five-year steps: an estimate for each of 1975 to 2025, then projection to 2050. Projected years are drawn hatched, and the UN publishes no range of uncertainty for a city. What a city means here, how the UN measures one, and why that number can differ from the one Petrolina publishes about itself: how the figures here are put together.
Sources: UN WUP 2025 · Natural Earth · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →
Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries